While some particles are more semantic and others have little except grammatical function, most particles have both elements. For instance, the particle
ajumif.
kraung.
‘because’ bears a strong semantic association with the nominal
tajumif:
a-kraung: ‘reason
or purpose, cause’ while the particle
csuf
hkyak functioning as a grammatical nominalizer, as
in
qHk:\zwfcsuf
hcum: hprat hkyak come to end + cut + Nom = ‘decision’, has more
grammaticalized force than
ajumif.
kraung. ‘because’. Although highly grammaticalized,
csuf
hkyak retains, even in its nominalization, something of the semantics of the source noun
csuf
hkyak ‘a central point’. Nominalizations with
csuf
hkyak employ the underlying
semantics of some sort of enumerative or persuasive point in the nominalized verb—
a|G:lcsuf
rwe: yu hkyak select + take + Nom = ‘choice’,
a0zefcsuf
we hpan hkyak
distribute + create + Nom = ‘criticism’. Other particles are entirely or almost so grammatical, such as the nominalizer
onf
sany about which much has been and will be said
here. It also functions grammatically as a sentence-final particle, declarative, realis mood, with evidential force from speaker’s direct knowledge. All such functions are more
grammatical than semantic. There are functions it performs resembling a pro-form for ‘people’ or ‘person’ in the nominal
Tonf
i: sany demonstrative-proximal +
demonstrative-neutralpro-form = ‘this person’, and as in the professionalizer nomenagentis function
ukefonf
kun sany trade + pro-form = ‘trader’ see further
examples in 4.3.3. In summary, particles have been classified according to their distribution within
grammatical constructions, and there is a wide spectrum of particle function between highly semantic to wholly grammatical.
3.6 Basic Principles of Grammatical Organization
The principles for the approach toward grammar employed here are now laid out to establish a basis for the types of processes and structures posited for Burmese.
It is assumed that the grammatical and semantic components are separate with different kinds of classifications and operations between them. It is also assumed that
ontological structure establishes a basic framework for both grammatical and semantic processes.
3.6.1 Grammatical Units
Using the insights of Stewart 1936, 1955, Cornyn 1944 and Okell 1969 of form classes and basic construction classes, two lexical, open-class forms and one grammatical, closed-
class form—noun, verb, and particle are sufficient to adequately catalogue the basic distinctions between a Thing and a Relation.
Only three levels of construction are needed to adequately describe Burmese grammatical structures—the Word, the Expression, and the Sentence. These are summarized
in table 22.
Constructional Forms
Accommodates Traditional Constructions
Basic Structural Description
Word
Simple Word, Compound Word, Phrase, Modifier Clause
N + N → N
Expression
Clause N + V → N
NV + P → N
Sentence Sentence, Paragraph, Text
N + Obs → N Table 22. Constructional forms and structural descriptions
The Word is a structure which describes the simple and complex compound lexical class, the phrasal type of Modifier and Head, and the attributive modifier clause relations of
nominals to a head. The constructional category of Expression describes the clause and is the unit of predication. The Sentence describes the linguistic unit N and includes the Observer
speaker as head of the construction.
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The same organization of the sentence holds true for paragraph and text. These forms are not semantic but grammatical forms. As such they
establish an organizing framework for information. They do not “contain” that information but structure it.
The kinds of structural units that are theorized are linguistic. They have a linguistic “reality” and also a grammatical “reality” as ordered sets. The consistency of process and
naturalness of the rules of ordering account for the simplicity of Burmese grammar.
3.6.2 Grammatical Processes
The grammatical processes operating in Burmese at all constructional levels are Juxtaposition and Operation. Underlying both operations is the notion of Headedness. These are
summarized in table 23.
Unit Connection Process
Structural Process
Headedness Word
Blending Juxtaposition Lexical
heads
Expression Sentence
Predicating Operation Functional and
Lexical heads Table 23. Grammatical processes of grammatical units
Juxtaposition is the association of two lexical form classes immediately contiguous to each other, either nouns or verbs. Juxtaposition occurs in compounding and is the basis for
increasingly larger types of constituents within the Burmese sentence. It is also the framework within which conceptual blends take place.
Operation refers to the process of predication. The view assumed here is that of natural language predication, a pre-Fregean view, rather than the approach of contemporary
logico-philosophical theories. The perspective is that of natural language predication somewhat more in line with the Aristotelian view in Metaphysics for Being, namely
λέγεται πολλαχσ “it is said in many ways.” The polysemy of predication has a long
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Inclusion of the Observer is not just a philosophical or a cognitive linguistic consideration but is manifest grammatically in Burmese by particles.
classical tradition of investigation. Normally what is said can be grammatically reduced to the noun and verb combination. The noun-verb notion of predicate has a natural language
tradition in linguistics and corresponds to what is often labeled as the clause versus a different type of assertion of the sentence. Aristotle says in De Interpretatione
17a9 “the structure noun-verb [
νομα - μα] is supposed to be the necessary ingredient not of sentences λóγος but rather of statements πóφανσις or λóγος ποφαντιòς which are defined as
truth-bearing sentences” Lenci 1998. Aristotle made a distinction between types of predications: a subject—predicate
ποκεíμενον - κατηγοροúμενον where the role of subject
ποκεíμενον is reserved for primary substances only in the semantico-ontological
predication, and b the noun-verb νομα - μα predication of the sentence λóγος. In
both these relations it is the act of “saying something about something else” that is focal. What is different between the two predicational types is the inference, particularly the truth-
bearing nature of sentences. For Aristotle temporality or tense was the distinctive difference between the truth-bearing relation of subject and predicate.
The term operation is used here both generically and specifically. Generically it refers to the notions of both a lexical predication in the sense of “sentence”
λóγος, and b grammatical predication. The category of noun, the ‘name’
νομα, and the category of verb μα, ‘what is said, the saying, the event or happening’, establish the basic relation of
predication which is figured in the notion of operand and operation, [ [operand] operator]. The nominal is the prototypical operand and the verb is the prototypical operator. Used
specifically, operator refers to the functional relationship of grammatical operators which underlyingly specify predicates such as location the act of locating something in space, time
the act of locating something in time, manner the act of designating how something was done, states the act of stating the relation of an object to an action, logical operations the
act of asserting a relationship such as cause, result, intention, purpose, and so forth. The operator in Burmese is the particle. Its function is to “state something about something else”
which in essence is what predication does. The operation may be lexical predication or grammatical, with a particle as the operator. The specific form, the grammatical form, is
mostly referred to in this study though at times predication and operation are used interchangeably.
Headedness refers to the relation of modifier to the thing modified, the head. Burmese is quite consistent as a head-final language. Some units may seem to be coordinate structures
but for most of these there is an underlying preference for right-headed constructions at all levels. The notion of cognitive ground in relation to profile or cognitive figure may underlie
our sense of grammatical headedness. Postpositional particles ground the constructions in which they occur; this cognitive asymmetrical relation allows us to say something profile
about something else ground.
3.6.3 Ontological Units